Summary for whole Colony.

Taking the returns for the whole Colony, we find that 86 seats were contested by 219 candidates. The 86 elected men received 60,052; the unsuccessful, 51,859 votes—the majority being only 8,193. Nearly half the number of voters who voted are to-day without a single representative in Parliament for whom they voted. The average vote received by the elected men was 690. The average vote recorded in each of the 86 contested districts was 1,301, so that in each electoral district in the Colony, 611 voters who voted are without representation in Parliament. There are 21 members elected who received a minority vote in their respective districts. There were, of course, cases in which there were more than two candidates for the single seat.

If to the 51,859 electors who failed to cast a vote assisting to the return of a solitary member there be added the votes of those 8,193 electors whose votes cast for the successful men were not needed for their election, being the total majority, Ave have, as the real waste of voting power at the last general election, 60,052 votes. From this the safe conclusion is arrived at that at all general elections, under the single seat system, in which the successful men poll a majority, the waste of voting power is always determined by the number of votes cast for the successful candidates, the figures will be identical.